At the sand pile, youngsters dug furiously to collect as much of a $200 pot in shiny coins as they could. A few feet away, other children lined up by age for running races, and still others waited their turn to toss a ball into a bucket for a prize.

Everyone walked away with a prize. "You teach the kids that even if you just try, you're special," said Jennifer Hakko, who volunteered to hand out prizes and tokens for popcorn and snow cones to participants' outstretched hands.

Robert Adams, who is in charge of the kids' games, said that the picnic sparks a real feeling of community among residents-something that he sees as important to a suburb loaded with commercial businesses. "Since there's no central downtown with park benches to sit on and shoot the breeze with people, this gives everybody a chance to get together and do something as a group," he added.